Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Bamboo for cooking vessel

These bamboo culms( stem) are from a species of bamboo normally cut for use as cooking vessel.

The kind of food that is stuffed inside these young bamboo stems are like glutinous rice, chicken meat or fish. At the Bintulu tamu yesterday I saw them being sold at RM 1 a piece.

In the hot and humid tropical rainforest of Bintulu , bamboos are a very important forest resource. The ways of using bamboo are very much left to imagination. Bamboos are used to build all parts of a house except the roof, where thatched palm leaves are the preference. There are made into suspension bridges, scaffoldings to reach dizzly heights to harvest bird's nest on the ceiling of caves, river rafts, furniture, handicrafts ( e.g. coin box,baskets,table mats,chopsticks, walking sticks, etc) and young bamboo buds are eaten as vegetables, so called ' bamboo shoots'. Bamboos are the tallest of all grasses, reaching 30 meters and more. And as seen in Chinese movies you can jump and run on top of bamboo trees to execute your kung fu kicks:)))